Cyril of Alexandria, Against the Synousiasts (fragments), LFC 47 (1881) pp.363-377.
CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA
FROM HIS TREATISE AGAINST THE SYNOUSIASTS
[Translated by P. E. Pusey]
of which the beginning is
A long discourse has already been made by us. |364
1.
A long exposition has already been wrought out by us, who desire to strive for the doctrines of the truth. For it everywhere sets forth One Lord Jesus Christ, Who proceeded forth God the Word out of God the Father Divinely, out of a woman humanly and after the flesh. And let no one say, who has a mind witting how to view each several thing, that I have been borne savagely down on them who have not such faith, seeing that a sort of sorrow sometimes invites hereto, sorrow I mean in regard to them whom we have contradicted. For the fact itself has its proof , not an idle excuse. For they indeed are already dead and departing from human affairs, have gone to another life; and it is utter folly in enmity to insult not the living |365 but them who are now dead. Nevertheless since the Truth is dear to the lovers of right doctrine, and it needs befits them to say the truth and to be practised in the power of resisting them who are wont to utter vain things, I thought I ought, seeing that a countless multitude of brethren have suffered no slight harm from what Diodore Bishop of Tarsus and he who was Bishop of Mopsuestia, the most eloquent Theodore, have written of Christ the Lord and Saviour of us all, to say some few things on what they said and to point out to readers the hideousness of the track of both.
2.
Since then some stumble and imagine to themselves a change of the Word into blood and flesh, let them be laughed at as beside themselves and let us say to them, Wake up ye drunkards from their wine, and let us examine of what kind is the nature of the flesh, and be ye diligent to think, of what kind again is that of God Who is over all. For unbounded is the interval, and with reason may one say that to venture to compare them at all is not free from responsibility. For the One is by Nature God and Lord of all, Light and Life and Glory and moreover Power, the other is what every body who lives among men knows. When then any affirm that there has taken place a change of the Word into this earthly body, or that the Word being God framed to Himself out of His own Essence, a body of the same nature as our bodies, let them confess first that He ceased to be what He is (He was, as I said, God and Creator, Life and Light, Glory and Power) and let them moreover affirm that to endure the liability to slip that belongs to things generate is nob alien to Him and that to be conversant with a worse condition than that wherein He is, is not untried by Him.
Yet I think one ought to investigate what it is that thrust Him down hereto: was it some necessity and tyranny of passion falling on Him? yet how is it not distraction that any should suppose this so to be? for where is the greater |366 than He and that is able to overpass His Nature ? since how is God the Name that is above every name and Lord of Hosts? But it is not necessity (they will haply say) but that a change of His own choice invited Him hereto. But it were impossible that He should suffer this too: for how should the Divine and Untaint Nature make ought that befitted Him not, His choice?
3.
But haply they will say in their folly that the Word being God changed into flesh yet not the whole nor altogether: albeit how is it not an evident proof of utter madness, to think and say that these things are so? for first of all to say that not wholly nor yet altogether did He change or undergo turning pertains to those who mete Him and represent Him as quantitied and no longer incorporeal, yea and capable of being conceived of as in space and as become circumscribed. Next how must not the opponents consider this too, that whatever a part of a body subject to the Word suffer, this full surely the whole too will in possibility suffer? (for suffering would not befall one of the parts, unless the nature of the whole body were susceptible of suffering). Hence seeing that the test of their ideas compels us even against our wills to advance to words we would not, beseeching the Word of God to pardon us we say this: that if it is true that He possesseth not the being beyond turning neither is the suffering it impossible to Him, the force of the blasphemy will full surely reach both to the Father Himself and to the Holy Ghost, for Consubstantial is the Holy and untaint Trinity. And then what stability look we for in God as to our own case if He too is weak as we and undergoes commotion unto what is not lawful to say, albeit we heard Him say in plain terms, Behold I am and have not been changed, the Divinely-uttering Psalmist too |367 says that the Heavens are the works of Thy Hands: they shall perish but Thou abidest and all of them shall wax old as a garment and as a covering shalt Thou fold them and they shall be changed, but Thou art the Same and Thy years shall not fail? Consider therefore that he who in spirit speaketh mysteries and is God-taught flings turning to the nature of things generate, saying by way of illustration or demonstration that the heavens shall wax old, and hath reserved Immutability to the God Who is over all, for he hath testified to Him Ever-being and unchangeableness.
And as it has been believed to be impossible that the Nature of the Word should change into what it was not, so can it not be that the generate pass into the nature of Godhead, lest many of Its attributes be seen to be accidents, which if it advanced so far as idea alone would have the charge of blasphemy indelible. For if ought of things generate at all change into the Godhead by Nature, one would not miss of right reasoning if one should chuse to say that It out of things that are not comes into existence and obtains that which is not its, as a sort of material of Its being, and that the body became the substance of incorporeal Essence, tangible and visible of the Invisible and Untangible. And if the Father's Only-Begotten Word is by Nature Life as being of the Father Who is Life, and by change hath admitted unto consubstantiality (as they say) that which, is of the human lump, there is great fear lest we say that He is not unmixed life, for He is not unmingled with what is apt to decay.
In another way too does the opinion of the deceived ones battle with the Economy with flesh: how, we will say. The Lord being God appeared to us that He might destroy the decay which lorded it over us, not that Himself might exhibit His own Nature partaker with decay by immingling with Himself flesh subject to death.
The charge therefore is of equal force, whether one say that the Word of God have been turned into the nature of body or whether that the flesh again is transformed into consubstantiality with God. It is fit therefore that we keep |368 away from both one and other, seeing that it is not without peril to chuse to think beside what one ought to think.
4.
That we may believe that even though His holy and all-pure Body be of same nature with our bodies, it is nevertheless august and Divine and far above our measures, as having been made His own, for He hath wrought through it, therefore was it called also bread of life, yea verily it is said both to have come down from Heaven and to give life to the world because of the Word that came down from above and out of Heaven, whose very own too the flesh has been made. Hence Divine it is (as I said), yet may one not surmise if indeed he have a mind well-established and that is versed in skill of dogma, that it has changed into the nature of the Godhead. For to the Nature that is Supreme and above all must be rigidly preserved Simplicity and absence of blending with other and of any appearance of being compounded in what belongs to It or of lacking any addition and coming into fellowship of sameness of nature or consubstantiality with ought unconnatural to It.
For come let us with acute eye of the understanding investigate the idea of the confusers. They say that His Flesh has been changed (I know not how) into consubstantiality with God the Word. Why? or what is it that brings it thereto? For of its own self it has not the impulse that would bring it thereto, and of its natural motions to admit such desires is foreign to it. It remains then to say this, that it was brought hereto by the will of God the Word. Did He then cast away the Economy which He clearly deemed worthy of all account by reason of His inherent Clemency and the Pleasure of His Father? for one may hear Him say clearly through the psalmist's voice, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, whole burnt-offerings and for sin Thou delightedst not in, but a Body Thou perfectedst Me, then I said, Lo, I come ( in the volume of the Book it has been written of Me) to do, O God, Thy Will: I delight to do it. |369 The sacrifices therefore (those I mean according to the Law of Moses) were unwilled by the Father, the Incarnation of the Word or His being made Man, was rather His Choice inasmuch as it brings in the grace that is through faith to those beneath the sky, His Clemency and God-befitting gentleness making a marvellous demonstration of Itself.
What plea will there be for daring to say that He cast off (as I just now said) the august and saving Economy, if so be it be true that He put off from Him the being flesh, having changed it into the Nature of Godhead, albeit the all-wise Paul hath written of His holy Body, For wherein He hath suffered He is able to succour the tempted? But if we take away that wherein He hath suffered, with it surely will go too the means of succour given to us. For the saying that the flesh changed into the Essence of Deity, belongs to those who take from it the being what it is; which if it be admitted to be true, no longer will it be thought or said to be flesh. Since what is the change, if it have remained what it is? What profit therefore is there to our bodies from being partakers of the Mystic and holy offering? or what is the benefit therefrom? for if the Word who is united thereto willed to transform it into His own Nature, why is He found saying to us, I am the bread of Life which came down from Heaven and giveth life to the world and the bread which I will give is My Flesh which I will give for the life of the world, and again, He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me and I in him?
Hence if the flesh have passed into what it was not, darting up or borne up by the Will of the Word into a position above its own nature, it is time (it seems) that we ourselves too should make after other sort the power of the mystery and follows what pleases him [who thus teaches].
5.
Therefore you have the confession of the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten, from which also our faith is True. But if (as our opponents say) the Word united thereto, put off His Flesh, changing it into His own Nature, the change of |370 the Flesh and the confession of our saving Faith will (it seems) come to an end together, and with it surely cease the justification too that is through it, we are yet in our sins, the filth of our old offences is still not cast away.
6.
If He have ceased from being as we, i.e. man, together with being also above us Divinely, the foundation of our salvation has been shaken, we unawares returned (it seems) to have to be again lorded over by death and sins. For as when the nethermost foundations of house (it may be) or wall have been shaken, the superincumbent parts too will surely subside with them: thus if the Economy with flesh of the Only-Begotten be not firm, our condition surely has tottered with it and grown weak at last; and how, we will say. For if they say that the Flesh of the Word have been changed into the Nature of the Godhead, there is every need to conceive that He has otherwise departed from His will to be son of man: then how does the all-wise Paul say, For there is one God, One Mediator too of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus Who gave Himself a ransom for us? For He mediates as being the Same, God alike and Man, reconciling us to God the Father through Himself and in Him and conjoining as it were unto union things by their own nature parted unto generic difference by a boundless parting, yet in Christ did they come together unto an union without confusion and that cannot be plucked asunder: for He has been connected Divinely with the Father, and He was connected with us too humanly. Thus is the Man Christ Jesus conceived to be and is our Mediator. But if the Flesh has been really (as he says) cast away by Him, He is gone surely away from mediating between us and His own Father: how therefore do we yet approach Him? who any longer brings us or mediates? For the Divine Paul said that the Mediator is Man: we remember Christ also Himself saying, No man cometh to the Father except through Me. Idle talk therefore and words full of distraction are the inventions of the Synousiasts. |371